Control plane implementations provide automated setup and control of services in a network. Advantageously, control planes offer multi-vendor and inter-domain inter-working, enhanced service offerings such as Ethernet over SONET/SDH or Optical Transport Network (OTN), end-to-end service activation, cross-domain provisioning of switched connection services, service restoration and the like. Traditionally, creating traffic paths through a series of Network Elements (NEs) has involved configuration of individual cross-connects on each NE. Control planes allow a user to specify the start point, end point, and bandwidth required, and an agent on the Network Elements allocates a path through the network, provisioning the traffic path, setting up cross-connects, and allocating bandwidth from the paths for the user requested service. The actual path that the traffic will take through the network is not specified by the user. Several control plane standards exist including International Telecommunication Union ITU-T Automatically Switched Optical/Transport Network (ASON/ASTN), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (G-MPLS), Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) Implementation Agreements, Tele-Management Forum (TMF) models for the management plane, and the like.
ASON specifications generally define an optical control plane communication framework. G-MPLS defines control plane discovery, routing, and signaling protocols. OIF Implementation Agreements define protocol extensions for multi-vendor interoperability. One such OIF Implementation Agreement is the External Network-Network Interface (ENNI) OSPF-based (Open Shortest Path First) Routing 1.0 Intra-Carrier Implementation Agreement, OIF-ENNI-OSPF-01.0, January 2007. To scale control planes or to connect multiple domains, typically an ENNI is utilized to interconnect Internal-Network to Network Interface (INNI) domains together. Disadvantageously, ENNI standards are immature relative to the features found on the INNI. Further, the INNI may include advanced proprietary features not available in standardized or competitor's control planes. It is also inefficient to port existing features to the ENNI.